Manual injector-type cigarette-making machines are well known. Such cigarette-making machines are typically operated by rotating a crank to first compress a selected portion of loose tobacco equivalent to one cigarette within a compaction chamber and then to inject the compressed tobacco into a pre-formed cigarette tube by means of a device that carries the tobacco into the tube. The pre-formed empty cigarette tube is held at one end of a hollow nipple of the cigarette-making machine during the injection of the compressed tobacco. Once the compressed tobacco is in place in the pre-formed cigarette tube, the tube is released from the cigarette-making machine to be smoked or stored for later use.
Many of the prior manual injector-type cigarette-making machines are considered slow and cumbersome to use, particularly when it is desired to make a substantial number of cigarettes. Many current automatic machines, on the other hand, are typically large, complex, expensive and difficult to use, making them impractical for individuals making cigarettes for their own use. Also, many of these complex and expensive automatic cigarette-making machines require careful calibration and produce many less than optimal cigarettes in terms of tube fill and tobacco uniformity. Furthermore, complex prior art automatic cigarette-making machines are vulnerable to breakdown and expensive repairs.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a compact, economical, semi-automatic cigarette-making machine that consistently and efficiently produces cigarettes using a mechanism that is neither complex nor requires adjustment or expensive repairs.